Romanticization
Romanticization is the act of treating a subject as more desirable or attractive than it is in reality.[2][3] Common subjects of romanticization in popular culture include nature,[4] crime,[5] abuse,[6] mental illness,[7] war,[8] and history. Historical romance is a genre of historical fiction which involves such romanticization to amplify the experience of love,[9] and according to Anita Desai, myth itself is a romanticization of history.[10] Romanticization is often associated with nostalgia, the concept of longing for the past, although the two terms are not synonymous.[11] While nostalgia is notorious for its tendency to romanticize,[12] it can also arise from genuine memory.[13]
Etymology
[edit]Romanticize derives from the word romantic.[14] According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the English word romanticize dates to an 1818 letter by English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, thus the historian Carl Thompson considers him to have coined the word.[15] The German translation of the word, romantisieren, was previously coined in the 1797–98 writings of the poet Novalis in a series of terms related to his new definition of the romantisch. Novalis wrote that:[16]
By conferring on secret things an elevated meaning, on the everyday a mysterious prestige, on the known the dignity of the unknown, on the finite the appearance of the infinite, I romanticize them.
A leading member of the Romantic movement in Germany, Novalis sought to imbue the concept of the romantic with a deeper significance by highlighting untruth or strangeness as its defining characteristic.[17]
Violence
[edit]The romanticization of violence has persisted across periods of human history and unto the present day, despite living alongside a desire to eradicate it.[18] The tradition of Bronze Age poetry which emerged in ancient Greece, the ancient Near East, and beyond evidently display such romanticization.[19]
War
[edit]The history of the romanticization of war in fiction can be traced through the Iliad, medieval romances, Shakespeare's plays, and the emergence of war memoirs in the 19th century,[20] but according to literary historians Paul Fussell and Yuval Noah Harari, this romanticization in literature slowly ended following the devastating impact of the First and Second World Wars.[21] The romanticized view of war is still prevalent in cultural and political discourse, where war is often seen as a worthwhile mean to the end of a constructive legacy[22] and romanticized narratives of war can help governments to recruit citizens to fight as soldiers.[23]
References
[edit]- ^ Stephens, Rachel (Spring 2020). ""Whatever is un-Virginian is Wrong!": The Loyal Slave Trope in Civil War Richmond and the Origins of the Lost Cause". Panorama (6.1).
- ^ Ndour & Foulkes 2025, p. 2297.
- ^ Kenasri & Sadasri 2021, p. 203.
- ^ Seddon, George (1998-09-28). Landprints: Reflections on Place and Landscape. Cambridge University Press. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-521-65999-4.
- ^ Duncan 1996, p. 190.
- ^ Béres, Laura (May 1999). "Beauty and the beast: The romanticization of abuse in popular culture". European Journal of Cultural Studies. 2 (2): 191–207. doi:10.1177/136754949900200203. ISSN 1367-5494.
- ^ Ndour & Foulkes 2025, p. 1.
- ^ Finger 2022, p. 27.
- ^ Fresno-Calleja & Teo 2024, p. 1.
- ^ "A passage from India". The Guardian. 1999-06-19. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2026-02-05.
- ^ Mason 2024, p. 526.
- ^ Feldbrügge 2011, p. 56.
- ^ Feldbrügge 2011, pp. 7–8.
- ^ "romanticize". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/OED/1201889346. Retrieved 6 February 2026. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- ^ Thompson, Carl (2007-05-31). The Suffering Traveller and the Romantic Imagination. Clarendon Press. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-19-153192-7.
- ^ Décultot 2014, pp. 908–909.
- ^ Eichner 1972, p. 124.
- ^ Terry-Fritsch, Allie (2012). "Proof in Pierced Flesh: Caravaggio's Doubting Thomas and the Beholder of Wounds in Early Modern Italy". In Terry-Fritsch, Allie; Labbie, Erin Felicia (eds.). Beholding Violence in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 1. ISBN 978-1-4094-4286-8.
- ^ Meagher, Robert E. (2002). The Meaning of Helen: In Search of an Ancient Icon. Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-86516-510-6.
- ^ Finger 2022, pp. 27–30.
- ^ Halat 2014, pp. 6–7.
- ^ Toros et al. 2018, pp. 20, 26.
- ^ Halat 2014, p. 291.
Bibliography
[edit]- Décultot, Elisabeth (2014-02-09). "Romantic". In Cassin, Barbara; Apter, Emily; Lezra, Jacques; Wood, Michael (eds.). Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon. Princeton University Press. pp. 907–910. ISBN 978-1-4008-4991-8.
- Duncan, Martha Grace (1996). Romantic Outlaws, Beloved Prisons: The Unconscious Meanings of Crime and Punishment. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-2110-0.
- Eichner, Hans (1972). "Germany / Romantisch – Romantik – Romantiker". In Eichner, Hans (ed.). "Romantic" and its cognates; the European history of a word. University of Toronto Press. pp. 98–156. ISBN 978-0-8020-5243-8 – via Internet Archive.
- Feldbrügge, Astrid (2011). Nostalgia, Home and Be-longing in Contemporary Postapartheid Fiction by Zakes Mda and Ivan Vladislavić (PhD thesis) (in German). Bayreuth: University of Bayreuth.
- Finger, Nathan Gregory (March 28, 2022). The First World War in British theatre (PhD thesis). Macquarie University. doi:10.25949/19436591.
- Fresno-Calleja, Paloma; Teo, Hsu-Ming (2024-12-04). "Introduction". Travel and Colonialism in 21st Century Romantic Historical Fiction (1 ed.). New York: Routledge. pp. 1–25. doi:10.4324/9781003495840-1. ISBN 978-1-003-49584-0. Retrieved 2026-02-05.
- Halat, Rebecca (June 2014). Un homme, un vrai: martial and alternative masculinities in French War literature and film (PhD thesis). University of Minnesota Twin Cities.
- Kenasri, Priscila Asoka; Sadasri, Lidwina Mutia (2021-10-27). "Romanticized Abusive Behavior by Media Narrative Analysis on Portrayal of Intimate Partner Violence Romanticism in Korean Drama". Humaniora. 33 (3): 202–211. doi:10.22146/jh.68104. ISSN 2302-9269.
- Mason, Sarah (October 2024). "Community nostalgia and transgenerational trauma: reconciling dichotomies from women's oral history of West Belfast, 1975–1995 *". Irish Studies Review. 32 (4): 523–539. doi:10.1080/09670882.2024.2407043. ISSN 0967-0882.
- Ndour, Awa; Foulkes, Lucy (2025-08-01). "The romanticisation of mental health problems in adolescents and its implications: a narrative review". European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 34 (8): 2297–2326. doi:10.1007/s00787-025-02701-0. ISSN 1435-165X. PMC 12396996. PMID 40220194.
- Toros, Harmonie; Dunleavy, Daniel; Gazeley, Joe; Guirakhoo, Alex; Merian, Lucie; Omran, Yasmeen (2018-08-01). ""Where is War? We are War." Teaching and Learning the Human Experience of War in the Classroom". International Studies Perspectives. 19 (3): 199–217. doi:10.1093/isp/ekx012. ISSN 1528-3577.
External links
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